Meg Alexander of KFOR in Oklahoma reports that hundreds of medical files containing Social Security number and medical records from the office of from Dr. David Cavallaro, a podiatrist, were found in a dumpster. Oklahoma reportedly has no law governing disposal of medical files. Now if there was a national data protection law that required…
Category: Health Data
Push For Electronic Medical Records Must Slow Down, For Security's Sake
Robert Vamosi of PC World reports: Among the many new provisions the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), is federal funding for electronic medical records. Known as HITECH, the law gives incentives to healthcare organizations to digitize personal health information before 2020. Lost in the rush, however, are the details. “I look forward to medical…
UK: Thousands of patient details lost
From the BBC: Thousands of patient details have been lost by the NHS in London following a series of data breaches, a report has revealed. NHS London revealed that between April 2008 until April 2009 there were 76 “serious untoward incidents”, which involved personal information of patients and staff being lost or stolen. At least…
FL: Hospital employee indicted for stealing patient information
Jacquettia L. Brown, and Tear Renee Barbary, both residents of Miami-Dade County have been indicted on offenses relating to the theft of patient profile records from Palmetto General Hospital to further a fraud scheme. The seven-count Indictment charges Brown and Barbary with conspiracy to commit access device fraud, in violation of Title 18, United States…
Tiversa Identifies Over 13 Million Breached Internet Files in the Past Year
From the Tiversa press release: Tiversa today announced the findings of new research that revealed 13,185,252 breached files emanating from over 4,310,839 sources on P2P file-sharing networks within a twelve month period from March 01, 2008 – March 01, 2009. […] The files analyzed included only those identified on behalf of Tiversa’s existing customer base…
Aetna server compromised; 65,000 notified
Tom Murphy of Associated Press reports that Aetna, Inc. learned that a web site maintained by a vendor had been compromised earlier this month. Files on the web site included about 450,000 email addresses for job applicants, but even more ominously, names, addresses, employment histories, and Social Security numbers of about 65,000 current and former…